If you plan to write or edit any documentation with emacs, install a customized emacs configuration file with DocBook commands in the skeleton directory, so it will be used for all new users. The file also fixes the backspace -> help mis-mapping that often occurs in terminals.

[root tmp]# cp /tmp/openacs-5.2.0b8/packages/acs-core-docs/www/files/emacs.txt /etc/skel/.emacs
cp: overwrite `/etc/skel/.emacs'? y
[root tmp]# 

Debian users:

apt-get install psgml

Note: The new nxml mode for emacs, when used in combination with psgml, provides a pretty good set of functionality that makes DocBook editing much less painless. In particular, nxml does syntax testing in real-time so that you can see syntax errors immediately instead of in the output of the xsltproc hours or days later. For debian, apt-get install nxml.